If you were left wondering how to add animated GIFs (GIF89a format) to your flash movies, then you need to surely read this post! I am sure many of you would have tried uploading animated GIFs by using the Add Image button but couldn’t get the option to work. Worry not, for you can upload animated GIFs using the Add Video button. Add Video option not only allows you to add videos but animated GIFs as well.  Why use animated GIFs? Well, if used wisely, then can be very effective in a flash movie presentation. Animated GIFs provide you the much needed option of adding basic picture animations to your flash movies. Animated GIFs are not too big either and they usually are just a few KBs in size.

You can do a quick Google search for “royalty free animated GIFs” and you will end up with scores of sites providing you free GIFs. Based on the theme of your movie, you can select your aGIFs and see for yourself what a marked change it brings to your flash movie. Go on, add some spice to your flash movies.

I love the animation movie Cars – the movie has some of the best animation, stunning visual effects and superb attention to detail. My love for the movie doubled when I watched the video of how the movie was made, from conception to the final movie as we see it today. Now if you watch the making of Cars you would know why – these guys are simply amazing, right from the character modeling, storyboarding to visual effects, every bit of the “behind the scenes” stuff was exactly translated into the movie without the least change – perfect as per the plan, not to forget the painstaking detail that would have gone into all the work behind Cars. One moment…why the heck am I writing all this here? Am I not supposed to write something about how to make flash movies? I am, and I will talk about that in just a moment. Talking about the movie Cars, what made it a big success? One can attribute the success to a number of factors – technical brilliance, detail, but if you ask me I would say two things – planning (being clear of what is expected) and personification – I saw each and every toy in the movie as just another person, a character so easily you can identify and associate with. That’s what made the movie special. The makers of Cars gave life to the toys by making it goddamn real and personal!

Ok, so whats my point? The point is a) plan your flash movies b) make it personal…infuse life into your flash videos. Give it that personal touch – sometimes making a flash movie presentation is less of skill and more of an art. Think as if you are creating an art, a masterpiece – you expect nothing but the best. There is a big difference in making a flash movie and making a flash movie that stand out and speaks for itself. Having flashy effects in your movie is cool, but not worth if it doesnt deliver. Even the effects that you use in your flash video decides how well your movie can make that impact. Carefully chosen flash effects coupled with the sound and images can infuse that personal connection between the flash movie and the audience. This is what I mean when I say making a lasting flash presentation.

Never let someone see your movie as just another flash presentation. Your flash movie should make an impact, should drive home your message loud and clear and in a manner unique that will make your movie stand out from the rest.

The normal flash movies that you see on websites, use a small software component called the Flash plugin. This Flash plugin comes along with your browsers (IE, Firefox, Netscape etc) but you can also manually install it by downloading it from Adobe site. This Flash plugin is responsible for playing the flash movies and flash videos that you see on all flash-enabled websites. In a normal website with Flash content, though its not directly possible to save those Flash videos, there are lots of workaround you can do to save a Flash movie that you see on a website (In Firefox, saving Flash content is relatively easier than IE. In Firefox, open a webpage with Flash animations, right-click anywhere on the page and select “View Page Info” from the popup menu. This opens the “Page Info” Dialog box. Select “Media” tab. Firefox lists all the media files (images, sounds, videos) that’s prsent on the webpage. The flash movies will be listed under Embed type with .SWF extension. Click on “Save As…” button to save the flash movie. Isn’t that cool???) . You can do the same stuff in IE using IE plugins like “Flash Saving Plugin 1.2″, Aevita Save Flash, etc.

This option to save Flash content from websites is great, but assume that you’re developing a paid courseware service in Flash and hosting it on your site. Imagine if users save your Flash content? Imagine they distribute it illegally over the internet? You lose your customers as well as your revenues. Keeping this in mind, we developed Toufee Movie Maker flashbox technology, which is a small layer of software that automatically loads when a webpage with Toufee movie is loaded. Instead of the Flash plugin, Toufee Movie Maker flashbox takes control of the Toufee movie (remember Toufee movies are also Flash movies but are optimized for enhanced security and faster downloads). Toufee’s flashbox still uses the same Adobe Flash plugin to play the Toufee movies, but conceals the flash movie content such that Firefox and IE plugins cannot recognize it. Toufee’s flashbox adds the important security feature to your Flash movies such that it cannot be saved. We are also developing additional features into this flashbox to support what we call “permission-based playing” that allows you to control what your target audience can/cannot view. Toufee’s flashbox is a great tool if you are developing commercial content delivery using Flash technology. Toufee Movie Maker’s flashbox technology provides you enhanced security as well as the flexibility to control content delivery. You can verify if it works by opening your Toufee movie in Firefox and check the “Media” section to see if it displays any flash (.SWF) files – it won’t – your Flash movies are secured by Toufee.

Ganesh
Toufee Support